Katharine of Aragon

by Jean Plaidy

  He tried to raise himself but he was very weak and, as he moved, he grimaced with pain.

  “It is in my side,” he said in answer to her question and, as he sank back, she saw the beads of sweat which had broken out on his smooth brow and across the bridge of his handsome nose.

  “I will call the physicians,” she said. “I will send for Dr. Parra. I believe him to be the best in the country.”

  “I feel safe… with you,” said Philip, and there was a wry twist to his lips.

  “Ah, Philip,” she said gently, “you have many enemies, but you need not fear while I am here.”

  That seemed to comfort him and she told herself exultantly: He rejoices that I am here. My presence comforts him. He knows I will protect him. For a time he loves me.

  She smiled almost roguishly. “You do not think me mad now, Philip?”

  She took his hand which was lying on the coverlet, and he returned the pressure feebly because he felt so weak.

  She thought: When you are strong and well you will mock me again. You will try to convince them that I am mad. You will try to put me in prison because you want my crown all for yourself. But now …you need me and you love me, just a little.

  She was smiling. Yes, he had taken all her pride. He loved her once for her crown; and now he loved her for the safety he could feel in her presence.

  But I love him with all my being, she reminded herself, so that I care not for what reason he loves me, if only he but will.

  She rose and sent at once for Dr. Parra.

  No one else should come near him. She would nurse him herself. She would forbid all other women to come into this sick-room. She would give the orders now. Was she not the Queen of Castile?

  IT WAS FOUR DAYS before Dr. Parra reached Burgos, and by that time Philip's fever had increased. He was now quite unaware of where he lay or who tended him. There were days when he did not speak at all but lay in a coma, and others when he muttered incoherently.

  Juana remained in the sickroom, clinging to her determination that no one but herself should wait on him. He took no food but occasionally sipped a little drink, and Juana would allow no one to offer this but herself.

  None could have been more calm than she was at that time. Gone was all the hysteria; she moved about the sickroom, the most efficient of nurses, and all the time she was praying that Philip would recover.

  But after seven days of fever his condition grew rapidly worse, and Dr. Parra ordered that cupping glasses be applied to his shoulders and purgatives administered. These instructions were carried out, but the patient did not rally.

  He had now fallen into a lethargy from which it was impossible to waken him; only now and then would he groan and put a hand to his side, which indicated that he suffered pain.

  On the morning of the 25th September of that year, 1506, black spots appeared on his body. The doctors were baffled, but there were strong suspicions now throughout the palace that Philip had drunk something more than water on that day when, overheated by the sport, he had asked for a drink.

  There were whispers now of: “Who brought the drink?” None could be sure. Perhaps Philip remembered, but he was too weak to say.

  Philip had many enemies, and the greatest of these was Ferdinand, who had been forced to surrender his rights in Castile. Ferdinand was far away, but men like Ferdinand did not do such deeds themselves; they found others to do the work for them.

  It was remembered that, shortly before Philip had been taken ill, Ferdinand's envoy, Luis Ferrer, had come to Burgos. But it was well not to talk too much of this, for, if Philip died and Juana were proved mad, then Ferdinand would undoubtedly become the Regent of Castile.

  So it was only in secret that people asked themselves who had poisoned Philip the Handsome. In public it was said that he was suffering sorely from a fever.

  HE WAS DEAD. Juana could not believe it. The doctors had said so, but it must not be.

  He was so young, only twenty-eight years of age, and he had been so full of vigor. It was not possible.

  They were surrounding her, telling her of their sorrow, but she did not hear them; she saw only him, not as he was now, drained of all life, but young, handsome, mocking, full of the joy of being alive.

  He is not dead, she said to herself. I will never believe that. I will never leave him. He shall stay with me always.

  Then she thought: I can keep him to myself now. I can send them all away. I am the ruler of Castile, and there is none to stand beside me and try to snatch my crown from me.

  They were weeping; they were telling her they suffered with her. How foolish they were! As if they could suffer as she suffered!

  She looked regal now. There was no sign of wildness in her face. She was calmer than any of them.

  “He shall be carried to the hall, and there he shall lie in state,” she said. “Wrap him in his ermine robes and put a jewelled cap on his head. He will be beautiful in death as he has been in life.”

  They obeyed her. They wrapped him in his ermine robe, which was lined with rich brocade; they placed the jewelled cap on his head and they laid a diamond cross on his breast. He was put on a catafalque covered with cloth of gold and carried down to the hall. There a throne had been set up and he was seated upon this so that he looked as though he were still alive. Then the candles were lighted and the friars sang their dirges in the hall of death.

  Juana lay at his feet, embracing his legs; and there she remained through the night.

  And when the body was embalmed and placed in its lead coffin she refused to leave it.

  “I shall never leave him again,” she cried. “In life he left me so often; in death he never shall.”

  Then it seemed that the madness was with her once more.

  THEY CARRIED HER to her apartment from which all light was shut out. She was exhausted, for she would neither sleep nor eat. It was only because she was weak that they were able to remove her from the coffin. For several days she sat in her darkened room, refusing all food; she did not take off her clothes; she spoke to no one.

  “Assuredly,” said all those of her household, “her sanity has left her.”

  While she remained thus shut away, the coffin was taken from the hall of the Palace of Burgos to the Cartuja de Miraflores and, when she heard that this had been done, she hurriedly left her darkened room.

  Now she was the Queen again, preparing to follow the coffin with all speed, giving orders that mourning should be made and that this was to resemble the garb of a nun, because she would be remote for ever from the world which did not contain her Philip.

  When she arrived at the church she found that the coffin had already been placed in a vault, and she ordered that it should immediately be brought out.

  She would have no disobedience. She reminded all that she was the Queen of Castile and expected obedience. So the coffin was brought from the vault.

  Then she cried: “Remove the cerecloths from the feet and the head. I would see him again.”

  And when this was done, she kissed those dead lips again and again and held the feet against her breast.

  “Highness,” whispered one of her women, “you torture yourself.”

  “What is there for me but torture when he is no longer with me?” she asked. “I would rather have him thus than not at all.”

  And she would not leave the corpse of her husband, but stayed there, kissing and fondling him, as she had longed to during his life.

  She would only leave after she had given strict orders that the coffin should not be closed. She would come again the next day and the next, and for as long as the coffin remained in this place she would come to kiss her husband and hold his dead body in her arms.

  And so she did. Arriving each day from the Palace of Burgos, there she would remain by the coffin, alternately staring at that dead figure in the utmost melancholy, and seizing it in her arms in a frantic passion.

  “It is true,” said those who watched her. “She is mad.… This ha
s proved it.”

  Katharine, The Ambassadress

  AFTER HER MEETING WITH JUANA, KATHARINE REALIZED that she could hope for no help from her own people. Her father was immersed in his own affairs, and indeed was far less able to help her by sending the remainder of her dowry than he had been when her mother was alive. As for Juana, she had no thought of anything but her own tragic obsession with her husband.

  That month had arrived during which, Katharine believed, she would know what her fate in England was to be.

  Her maids of honor chatted together about that important day, the twenty-ninth; she listened to them and did not reprove them. She knew they would talk in secret if not before her.

  “He will be fifteen on the twenty-ninth.”

  “It is the very month, this very year.”

  “Then we shall see.”

  “When they are married it will make all the difference to our state. Oh, would it not be wonderful to have a new gown again!”

  Katharine broke in on their conversation. “You are foolish to hope,” she said. “The Prince was betrothed to me, but that was long ago. Do you not realize that if we were to be married we should have heard of it long ere this? There would surely be great preparations for the marriage of the Prince of Wales.”

  “It may be that the marriage will be announced,” said Francesca. “Mayhap they are saving the announcement, that it may be made on his fifteenth birthday.”

  Katharine shook her head. “Does the King of England treat me as his future daughter-in-law?”

  “No, but after the announcement he might.”

  “You are living in dreams,” said Katharine.

  She looked at those faces which had been so bright and were now often clouded by frustration and disappointment.

  She knew that the betrothal of herself and Henry would be forgotten, as so many similar betrothals had been, and that his fifteenth birthday would pass without any reference to the marriage which was to have taken place on that day.

  Katharine caught the despair of her maids in waiting, and she sent for Dr. de Puebla.

  The doctor arrived, and the sight of him made her shudder with disgust. He looked so shabby; he seemed to wear a perpetually deprecating expression, which was probably due to the fact that he was continually apologizing to Henry for Ferdinand, and to Katharine for his inability to improve her lot. He was infirm nowadays and almost crippled; he could not walk or ride the distance from his humble lodgings in the Strand to the Court, so travelled in a litter. He was in constant pain from the gout and, since he had received no money from Ferdinand for a very long time, he was obliged to live on the little which came in from his legal business. This was not much, for Englishmen were not eager to consult a Spaniard and he had to rely on Spaniards in England. He dined out when he could and, when he could not, he did so as cheaply as possible; and he was a great deal shabbier than Katharine and her maids of honor.

  He was unfortunate inasmuch as he irritated Katharine; she was by nature serene and compassionate, but the little Jew, perhaps because he was her father's ambassador in a Court where she needed great help, exasperated her almost beyond endurance and she began to feel—wrongly—that, if only she had a man more worthy to represent her father and to work for her, her position would not be so deplorable as it was and had been for most of her stay in England.

  “Dr. de Puebla,” said Katharine, as he shuffled towards her and kissed her hand, “have you realized that the fifteenth birthday of the Prince of Wales has now come and gone and there has been no mention of the marriage which was once proposed between us?”

  “I fear I did not expect there would be, Highness.”

  “What have you done about this matter?”

  Puebla spread his hands in a well-remembered gesture. “Highness, there is nothing I can do.”

  “Nothing! Are you not here to look after the interests of my father, and are they not mine?”

  “Highness, if I could persuade the King of England to this marriage do not doubt that I should do so.”

  Katharine turned away because such bitter words rose to her lips, and the sight of the sick little man made her feel ashamed of her anger towards him.

  “Is nothing ever going to happen?” she demanded. “How do you think I live?”

  “Highness, it is hard for you. It is hard for me. Believe me, I am well acquainted with poverty.”

  “It goes on and on and on,” she cried. “There is no way out. If I could return to Spain…”

  She stopped. In that moment she had made a discovery. She did not want to return to Spain, because all that she had wished to return to was no more. She had longed for her mother, but Spain no longer contained Isabella. Did she want to be with her father? There had never been any great tenderness between them, because his affection for his children had always been overlaid with hopes of what they could bring him. Maria was in Portugal. Juana had grown strange. Did she want to go to Spain then to be with Juana and her husband, to see their tempestuous relationship, did she want to see that handsome philanderer gradually driving her sister over the edge of sanity?

  Spain had nothing for her. What had England? Nothing apart from the dazzling prospect of marriage with the Prince of Wales.

  Katharine realized in that moment that she must marry the Prince or remain all her life an outcast from Spain, the unwanted stranger in a foreign land.

  She needed brilliant diplomacy to bring about the marriage, and all she had was this shabby, gouty Jew.

  He was saying now: “Highness, I have done everything I can. Believe me, I will not spare myself…”

  Katharine shook her head and murmured: “Mayhap you do your best, but I like not the way these matters go. You may retire now. Should you become further acquainted with the King's mind, I pray you come to me, for I am anxious.”

  Puebla shuffled out, and he was surprised, when he had left her presence, to find his cheeks were wet.

  I am worn out, he said to himself, with all the work which has come to nothing. I suffer pain; I can no longer amuse and entertain. I have outlived my usefulness. That is why old men shed tears.

  And, left alone, Katharine wrote to her father. She told him that his ambassador in England was no longer able to work for her good or the good of Spain. She implored him to give this matter his attention and appoint a new ambassador to the Court of the Tudor King, for the sake of Spain and for his daughter, who was beside herself with misery.

  EAGERLY SHE AWAITED news from her father. Each day during that summer seemed more trying than the last. The maids of honor did not attempt to hide their dissatisfaction. They were continually longing to be back in Spain.

  There were perpetual quarrels in the household, and Katharine almost wished that Doña Elvira was back with them to keep them all in order. Francesca was more restless than the others and she seemed to find a wicked delight in accusing each member of the household of intriguing to keep them in England. There could be no greater sin in the eyes of Francesca.

  The fact is, thought Katharine, they need to be married. If Arthur had lived, they would all have worthy husbands now, and rich, full lives.

  It seemed to her that each month it was necessary to rifle her store of jewels and plate. She felt guilty when she sold or pawned these pieces, but what could she do? Her expenses had to be met, and disposing of her plate and jewellery was the only means of doing this.

  At last news came from Spain, and when she read of the death of Philip she could not help but rejoice.

  He was my father's enemy, she told herself; he turned him from Castile and he would have taken the crown from Juana. She is miserable now, but it is a good thing that he has gone.

  She imagined her father's secret delight, for if Juana were incapable of ruling it was certain that Ferdinand would come back to Castile and the Regency.

  She realized what this would mean. Ferdinand would be of more account in Europe than previously, and the manner in which the King of England treated her depende
d largely on what was happening to her father.

  So could she consider this sudden and mysterious death of her handsome brother-in-law good news? She believed she could.

  There was a letter from her father in answer to that which she had sent asking for a new ambassador.

  “Why should you not be my ambassador?” wrote Ferdinand. “You have been at the English Court for some years. You know their ways; you speak their language. In due course I will send you an ambassador, but in the meantime you may consider yourself as such. Listen to Puebla; he is a clever man, perhaps cleverer than you realize. Be guided by him. He has worked well for Spain and will, I hope, continue to do so.”

  When Katharine had stopped reading there was a faint color in her cheeks. She felt more cheered than she had for a long time. Now she would have an interest in life; now she would have more power, and she would try to serve her father faithfully and at the same time bring about a happier state for herself. And how could she achieve such a state? There was one answer: Only by marriage to the Prince of Wales.

  THE KING OF ENGLAND requested the pleasure of her company. She went to his apartments, her hopes high, wondering what news he had to impart to her.

  He was alone and he received her with graciousness, as though, she believed, he considered her of greater importance than he had when they had last met.

  When she had been formally greeted she was allowed to sit in his presence and, cupping his face in his hands, the King said: “This is a matter which I believe I can entrust to your hands more readily than I could to any other.”

  “Your Highness delights me,” she answered.

  Henry nodded, his lower lip protruded, his expression more pleasant than usual.

  “I shall never forget the day when your sister, the Queen of Castile, arrived at Windsor. What grace was hers! What charm!”

  Katharine was puzzled. She too would never forget that day, but had been struck more by Juana's melancholy than her grace and charm.

  “I have not forgotten her from that day to this,” said the King. He paused and then went on: “You now act as your father's ambassador, so I am going to entrust this matter to you. I want you to tell your father that I am asking for the hand of the Queen of Castile.”